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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24936004">fly along with me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gealbhan/pseuds/gealbhan'>gealbhan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken | Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Coming Out, FE Trans Week, Family Dynamics, Gen, Gender-Affirming Pegasi, Trans Character, Trans Solidarity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:01:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,577</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24936004</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gealbhan/pseuds/gealbhan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>From a young age, Florina loves pegasi. From a young age, Hector loves the thrill of battle. Or: Two coming-of-age tales, joined by a single pegasus.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eliwood/Hector (Fire Emblem), Farina &amp; Fiora &amp; Florina (Fire Emblem), Florina &amp; Hector (Fire Emblem), Florina/Lyndis (Fire Emblem), Hector &amp; Uther (Fire Emblem)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem Trans Week 2020!</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>fly along with me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>written for day 1 of fe trans week: acceptance/realization!</p><p>i don't recall if pegasi not liking men is ever a piece of canon fe lore (though definitely implied by pegasus knight being a gender-locked class), but it's present in other folklore, so i'm choosing to include it here. title from "learn to fly" by foo fighters. enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>From a young age, Florina loves pegasi.</p><p>It would have been harder <em>not</em> to, with how many there are in the Ilian village in which she grows up. Fiora and Farina take a keen interest in the creatures as well, taking after their mother—whether it’s against or to her wishes, Florina can’t say, not having known her long enough before her passing—and training to become pegasus-riding mercenaries. They don’t have much in gold, but they do have companions in their pegasi.</p><p>When Florina—two years younger than Farina, four behind Fiora—is able to walk, she ends up tagging along with them to the stables. She’s always been sensitive and shy, more comfortable around animals than people. It isn’t much of a surprise, then, that she would grow to adore the ethereally beautiful creatures.</p><p>But it <em>is</em> a surprise when the pegasi take a liking to her in return.</p><p>Here in the mountains, it’s well-known that pegasi only take well to women. Men, they respond to with hostile neutrality if not outright aggression. People who aren’t either go mostly ignored. Yet when Florina (not that she goes by that at the time), held up by Farina—whom Fiora had forced to promise that she wouldn’t flip Florina upside down or anything like that—raises a tiny hand to paw at a pegasus’s cheek, it whinnies and nudges further into her palm.</p><p>Farina can’t hide the way her jaw drops, nor can Fiora cloak the less blatant but no less surprised arch of her eyebrows. Farina sets Florina down, much to both her and the pegasus’s protests.</p><p>Florina is too young to place any significance on it, let alone question if it’s a fluke. When Fiora lets her come along in another couple of days, though, everyone sees that it isn’t when the same pegasus flaps its wings at the sight of her.</p><p>They’re fast friends, she and this mare, and it bewilders everyone else as much as it delights Florina.</p><p>As she grows older and more aware of the world and its workings, Florina starts to wonder herself: Why <em>do</em> the pegasi treat her like any other girl when everyone else sees her as a boy? Perhaps it’s because the pegasi know how uncomfortable Florina is around men too. Perhaps they can’t tell when she’s this young (though this reasoning doesn’t hold up when one of the village women walks past with her newborn cradled against her chest). Perhaps it’s something in her blood, a long lineage of pegasus knights overruling intrinsic biases.</p><p>Or maybe it’s for another reason altogether, one that Florina hasn’t been able to so much as whisper to herself yet. The thought sets off butterflies in her stomach.</p><p>Askance looks and raised eyebrows aside, no one seems to want to mention it outright. Florina is just an oddity in her village, which is small enough that everyone adjusts after some time, though she still earns the odd double-take as she ages into her eccentricities.</p><p>Fiora is the first to mention it, years later, when ten-year-old Florina is helping her clean up the stables. Fiora is close to becoming a full-fledged knight now, but she’s still insistent upon carrying out menial tasks like this—and teaching Florina and Farina how to carry them out right. Florina is better at it than Farina, though, and so Fiora doesn’t have much commentary to offer in terms of instructions or criticism.</p><p>“It’s remarkable how you’ve connected with them,” she says instead, raising her voice to be heard from where she’s raking up straw. Florina, on tiptoes to comb through the mane of a colt—the firstborn of that mare she’d first bonded with, still a little wobbly on his hooves—hums noncommittally. “I’ve never seen any pegasus take to a boy so well.”</p><p>Florina stops. Anxiety twists in her stomach. The conscious thought has entered her mind by now, after she’d stumbled upon something in a book: A fairytale about a young woman called a boy when she was born, treated as a young man by cruel sisters but finding love and support in a prince. The descriptions had tugged at something deep in Florina’s heart, bittersweet and nostalgic, like meeting a twin sister she’d never known existed. To be like that princess—Florina had wished for nothing more. She’d always connected better to the heroines in such tales, but never in such a way.</p><p>It hadn’t been until later, lying in bed and listening to Farina snoring, that she’d actually brought herself to think it: <em>Am I a girl?</em></p><p>She hasn’t said a word in the months since; she hadn’t even known if Fiora and Farina had known about that story, or that Florina had read it. But now… it seems as good a time as any, doesn’t it?</p><p>She sets the comb down and takes a deep breath. The sound and movement bring Fiora’s attention to her, and her face falters at whatever look must be on Florina’s face. She opens her mouth, but Florina just <em>knows</em> that if Fiora says something, anything, right now, she’ll lose what little nerve she has and never bring this up again.</p><p>So Florina says, in what will be characterized by everyone (including herself) as one of the bravest moments of her life: “Well, um, maybe it’s because I’m… n-not a boy?” She winces at once at how vague that sounds and hurries to add, “I mean, I—I think—I might be—I think I’m a girl.”</p><p>There is silence for a moment. Florina shuts her eyes.</p><p>And then, with the clattering sound of the rake hitting the ground, Fiora rushes over to embrace her like she never has before. Florina gasps for breath as her sister’s arms squeeze it out of her with sheer affection.</p><p>“Fiora,” she manages, clasping at Fiora’s shoulders as best she can. She’s not necessarily opposed to hugs, but she <em>is</em> opposed to suffocation. <em>“Fiora.”</em></p><p>“Oh! I’m sorry!” Abashed, Fiora jumps back, and Florina takes the chance to take a deep inhale and press a grateful hand to her chest. Fiora gives her a sheepish smile. It helps somewhat to see that Fiora is almost as flustered as she is, though she’s still much more put-together. “Thank you for telling me. I don’t know too much about this sort of thing, but I have heard some stories, and—” She averts her gaze. “Well, thank you… oh. Do you want to keep going by your old name, or is there something else you want to go by?”</p><p>This is something Florina has thought about since even before her gender realization, always in the context of daydreams and what-ifs. She’d considered breaking their family naming tradition, but in the end, nothing has appealed to her as much as the name <em>Florina</em>, something she’d stumbled upon in a different story. It sounds as pleasant as the beating of pegasus wings and feels as soft as their downy feathers.</p><p>“Florina,” she says, her heart beating so fast she thinks it might burst from her chest. “I—I want to go by Florina.”</p><p>“Okay, Florina,” says Fiora, smiling.</p><p>She has more questions, of course—about Florina’s hair, her manner of dress, her pronouns and titles, how far exactly she’d like to go with this, who she doesn’t mind knowing, if she wants Fiora to talk to other people in her place—but that might as well be it. It leaves Florina even more breathless than Fiora’s embrace had.</p><p>Farina has always teased Florina for her sensitive nature, quiet and awkward and weak, so she’s nervous about telling her. Fiora talks to her while Florina is outside, pretending to hang up clothes while really macerating in her anxiety, waiting but refusing to eavesdrop.</p><p><em>Farina isn’t </em> mean, she tells herself. <em>She just tries to toughen me up. …Well, she’s mean sometimes. But she wouldn’t be mean about something like this. Or would she?</em></p><p>Florina bites her lip. She hasn’t even talked to Farina yet, and she’s already almost in tears. <em>Stop thinking about this. Be patient.</em></p><p>When their door slams open, Florina drops one of Fiora’s shirts. Farina comes darting across the grass toward her. Florina freezes up, unsure what to expect, but Farina only embraces her, sweeping her all the way up into the air. It feels, in a way, like flying. Florina’s surprised squeal sends Fiora running out after them.</p><p>“<em>Farina</em>, put her down right now,” she scolds, harsh, and Florina sees Farina roll her eyes before she obliges.</p><p>Florina hadn’t minded much, but she can’t bring herself to protest. Too dizzy to speak—and still a little teary—she looks at Farina, who scratches her cheek.</p><p>“I always kinda wanted a baby sister,” she admits. “That’s how it always goes in the stories: Three sisters who all become pegasus knights and take to the skies together.”</p><p>At that, Florina bursts into tears—but they’re tears of joy.</p><p>Farina laughs, but she wipes them away and tugs her into a gentler hug that Fiora soon joins, and there they stand, three sisters united in their similarities rather than split by their differences.</p><p>Farina doesn’t start being easier on her in training, of course. She doesn’t treat her exactly the same, but her behavior is accommodating in a way that Florina appreciates, even if she still cries more than Farina thinks is becoming of a future pegasus knight.</p><p>Fiora must work some kind of magic; within a week, all of town knows. Florina finds herself being greeted by name by people she’s never exchanged more than a few words with in her short life. She isn’t sure how to take this widespread acceptance; she’d never <em>expected</em> rejection, given what little she knows about her community, but some pressing thought at the back of her mind had pushed the concept of it nonetheless. Shy as she is, the sudden attention is embarrassing, too.</p><p>In her uncertainty, she flees to the stables. Now that she understands why she’s always been able to connect so well with pegasi, she feels even closer to them. They’d known a decade before she had. It’s embarrassing, but it also makes Florina feel more vindicated and comfortable than she’d ever thought possible.</p><p>“Thank you,” she tells the stable at large.</p><p>Fiora finds her there when the sun is setting, and she pauses to smile at Florina stroking through the colt’s mane. “That one seems to have taken a particular liking to you,” she comments. “Why don’t you name him?”</p><p>Florina startles upright. “What? Me?”</p><p>Fiora nods, and Florina tenses. This, somehow, is higher-stakes than choosing her own name had been. She turns to stare into the pegasus’s warm, imploring eyes. She looks him over: The bright white sheen of his coat, the small wings still folded at his sides, his short tail, the diamond-shaped mark on his forehead.</p><p>“Huey,” she decides, and <em>Huey</em> he is dubbed. It isn’t as nice a name as <em>Florina</em>, but for the pegasus who is sure to be her closest companion aside from her sisters, it will have to suffice.</p><p>Within the next few months, Florina has decided that she’ll join her sisters as mercenaries. It’s not much of a surprise, but Fiora and Farina congratulate her all the same.</p><p>Despite her long-standing comfort around pegasi, her first flight—upon Huey, once he’s big enough—doesn’t go well. Florina almost falls, flustered further by the safety net Farina and Fiora provide beneath her. Once she’s back on her feet, her legs are so shaky that she immediately collapses to her knees anyway.</p><p>Her lip trembles. A horrible thought lances through her, and Fiora hugs her like she hears it.</p><p>“All it takes is practice,” she says. “Remember the first time Farina got on a pegasus? She sat on it backwards.”</p><p>“<em>Hey,”</em> Farina complains, but she stops scowling the second she notices Florina’s smile.</p><p>The next time goes much better, and once she’s in the air and comfortable enough to enjoy it, Florina never wants to come back down again. This, she knows, is what she was born for.</p><p>It doesn’t stop her from getting grounded again, a while later, when a swarm of bees comes at her and Huey while they’re gliding over the plains, the farthest they’ve strayed yet. Florina screams and flails, and before she knows it, she’s falling. She manages to catch herself on a branch on her way down. It’s large enough (and she’s small enough) that it doesn’t collapse under her weight, but there’s still an unsettling splintering sound.</p><p>Looking down from here, though, is much different from looking down from Huey’s back. And Huey himself is nowhere to be seen. When the sun starts to go down, Florina starts crying.</p><p>A girl her age is the one to pull her free from the tree, to take her hands in hers and inspect Florina’s bumps and bruises. She brings Huey back to her, too, though she stops Florina from rushing to him just yet. Florina blushes and looks away as the girl—Lyn, she tells her her name is—cleans up her cuts.</p><p>“I really need to get home to tell my sisters I’m okay,” says Florina. She’s proud of herself for being able to speak so clearly when the feeling of Lyn’s warm hands against hers makes her heart beat fast.</p><p>“It’s way too dark for that,” Lyn insists. “Please just stay with me and my family for the night. I promise we can get you back to your sisters in the morning—it’ll be much safer for you to travel when it’s light out.”</p><p>Florina can’t argue with that; she doesn’t really want to travel at night, either. She lowers her head and glumly accepts Lyn’s encouraging pat to her shoulder.</p><p>They walk across the plains—which are far more humid than Florina’s mountainous home; Florina wonders but can’t bring herself to ask if it ever snows here—in silence for a while. Lyn’s tribe doesn’t live far from where Florina had fallen, she says in reassurance. There’s still a gnawing sensation in Florina’s stomach as she follows Lyn along the dirt path. (Though it might be more hunger than anything else.)</p><p>Huey mostly ignores Lyn, which takes Florina by surprise. “He usually likes girls,” she murmurs.</p><p>Lyn’s brows knit together. “I don’t know if I am one,” she confesses in a tone that Florina well recognizes. “I suppose I am, but also not. It’s—gender is complicated for Sacaens sometimes, so I’m not sure if I can explain it to an outsider.” She glances up; Florina becomes somewhat aware that she’s stopped in place. “Is it much different in Ilia?”</p><p>This draws Florina out of her shell, and on the rest of their walk to Lyn’s home, they chatter back and forth. Their conversation flows to the point where Florina almost doesn’t want to stop for dinner when they at last reach Lyn’s tribe and her parents’ ger.</p><p>Flustered as she is to meet Lyn’s parents, especially her gruff but welcoming father, Florina is much more excited to have made a friend outside her village, let alone one like her. They speak as long as they can before morning comes and Florina has to force herself to leave.</p><p>“I hope we’ll meet again,” Lyn tells her with a grin, and Florina returns the sentiment as she climbs aboard Huey.</p><p>Florina returns home much more chipper than her sisters had expected, with her day-long absence, but her stories of her new friend from the plains have erased any thought of yesterday’s tribulations from her mind. Farina starts to tease her and gets a sharp look from Fiora. Oblivious to the knowing looks over her head, Florina goes about the next week in a dazed state until she’s able to visit the plains again.</p><p>Lyn’s presence, warm and welcoming, becomes a constant in her life. Florina has never had a human friend so true, and she allows this new warmth to propel her through her pegasus knight training, especially as Fiora and Farina grow more distant in more ways than one, soon no longer returning to the village at all. Instead of drifting apart, they grow closer and closer as the years pass. They don’t see each other often because of the distance and Florina’s training, but when they do see each other, it’s always with tight hugs that only make Florina’s heart beat faster each time.</p><p>By seventeen, Florina is ready to become a full pegasus knight. She tries to find Lyn to tell her this, only to find that she’s disappeared from Sacae—that her entire <em>tribe</em> has disappeared from Sacae.</p><p>Horror strikes Florina, but she knows Lyn wouldn’t just disappear like that. But when she comes upon her, by sheer accident, it’s only to find that she’s discovered her heritage as a noblewoman of Caelin and accrued a band of mercenaries—all men to boot, minus the tactician, whom Huey ignores—and is heading there now.</p><p>“Will you come with us?” Lyn asks, and Florina can do nothing but take her outstretched hand.</p><p>Florina is still shy, and especially uncomfortable around men. She pledges that from now on, she will become braver—she will not work to overcome her introversion and become a different person, but she will draw strength from it. She will be braver. For Lyn, but also for her sisters and the rest of her village—and, Florina determines, for herself most of all.</p><p>When Lyn joins forces with two lords, Florina makes good at that promise. She’s made friends among Lyn’s retinue, having spent the past year training alongside them, and she finds herself growing more almost (<em>almost</em>) comfortable around even the largest and strongest of men in their company.</p><p>And when she does reach her limit, she can always take to the sky, where she’ll be weightless and free, no one to prove anything to but herself and Huey.</p><p>She’s always felt more at home there, anyway.</p><p>*</p><p>From a young age, Hector loves the thrill of battle.</p><p>Long before he’s so much as grown into his legs, he’s established himself as the kind of child to be constantly told, “That is <em>not</em> how young noblewomen behave.” He’s a wrecking ball of a child, and what irritates him most of all is that he’s not allowed to be. Being alone is the only time he feels comfortable. He loves to play-act fights more than anything else, though Uther doesn’t let him near the many weapons in the Ostia estate until he’s older—or at least he tries his best to keep Hector away from such things, but it soon becomes clear that very little will stop Hector from getting what he wants.</p><p>People call him a tomboy, <em>one of the boys</em>. Hector doesn’t mind it at the time—he can’t hear the disdain in their voices. And they’re right after all, it turns out when he starts gagging at the sound of the name he’d been given at birth and being called a <em>lady</em>.</p><p>One of his earliest memories is of taking an axe to his hair. He’s not sure how to rationalize it, at the time. He doesn’t mind long hair, but the assumptions that come with it bother him, as does how everyone tells him not to mess it up because of how pretty it is, how elegant he looks. He just wants it all gone, and he breaks away from one of the maids one day to carry this out.</p><p>Uther finds him in the garden. Hector isn’t sure <em>what</em> goes through Uther’s mind upon finding his six-year-old brother standing in the garden with a handaxe precariously close to his neck, beaming as if nothing is wrong even though multiple things are off at first glance alone, not least Hector’s lopsided haircut.</p><p>Whatever Uther must think, the next thing Hector knows, he’s being sat down for a proper haircut. Uther—after having a brief conversation with a maid, Hector firmly out of sight—washes Hector’s hair, perches him upon a stool, drapes a towel around his shoulders, and fetches a pair of scissors as sharp as any axe. The process is far too boring for Hector, of course, so he wiggles. A lot.</p><p>“Sit still, or I’ll accidentally lop one of your ears off as well,” snaps Uther with near hysteria. He pauses to tip Hector’s head back. “How short do you want it?”</p><p>Hector flails out his legs, making Uther flick his scalp. “Really short! Way shorter than yours.”</p><p>In the years to come, Hector will realize how unhelpful this is, but Uther just sighs and obliges. Hector continues to squirm while Uther shears away his once shoulder-length hair. Locks cover the back of Hector’s neck and his shoulders, seeming to stick to any patch of skin they can find, and the itchy feeling only grows worse when Uther takes a razor gently up the back of Hector’s neck. He giggles and then shivers at the cold metal against his skin. He’s seen Uther shaving his face, though, so he stays silent and waits.</p><p>Once he’s finished and has dusted the excess hair off onto the floor, Uther holds a mirror out before him. “Is that short enough?”</p><p>Hector stares at his reflection. His haircut isn’t neat by any means, though considerably tidier than his own attempt—the wildness, it seems, suits him. It takes several moments for Hector to pull his gaze away to beam at Uther, unable to bring himself to speak.</p><p>Uther nods and pulls up another stool. “So,” he begins, “I’ve noticed something about you lately…”</p><p>A short conversation later, Uther goes before his advisors with a hand planted on Hector’s shoulder to keep him from scuttling away. Uther is the youngest Marquess Ostia to take the throne in decades—Hector can’t remember all that well, but he’d stepped up two years ago at little more than sixteen, forced to push aside his grief to rule his territory—and it shows in how the others treat him. But now, even young, unrestrained Hector falls silent at the presence his brother carries.</p><p>Confusion fills the room, eyes flitting between Uther and the young boy at his side, looking so starkly different from Uther’s sister that few would recognize him. When Uther clears his throat, everyone focuses on him.</p><p>“This is my little brother,” Uther states, and recognition sparks across the room—as do whispers. “His name is Hector. And if he is not treated as such from this day forth, the people of Ostia and the lands beyond <em>will</em> answer to me.”</p><p>Uther steps slightly in front of Hector, though his broad hand stays on his shoulder. Hector stares up at his brother’s back in awe. He isn’t a boy because, on some level, he wants to emulate his brother—he’d wrinkled his nose when Uther had posed the very possibility—but now, looking up at him, he can’t help but think: <em>I want to be like that.</em> (Not that he ever intends to tell him so.)</p><p>The council hesitates to nod. Someone tries to bring up what the previous Marquess Ostia would have thought. Uther’s face goes stony—another advisor steps in before he can say anything, suggesting strongly that the man reconsider that remark.</p><p>It seems to strike a chord. Hector is a bit lost—the most he remembers about his parents is his mother’s lilac perfume and the scratch of his father’s mighty beard—but doesn’t dare say so, not with the entire room rapt.</p><p>“Hector,” says Uther, nudging him forth. “Introduce yourself.”</p><p>“Hello,” says Hector, dipping into the best bow he can muster—it’s much different than a curtsy, but it’s easier to pull off. “I am Lord Hector, the second son of Ostia.”</p><p>Choosing that name had been a simple process: Uther had suggested a few options, and Hector had picked the one that had most appealed to him. Uther had implied that he could change his mind when he got older, but a thrill goes through Hector at introducing himself as such. He tamps down on his smile, but the joy in his eyes shines through.</p><p>Either Hector had made a strong second impression, or Uther’s free hand is resting on his axe just enough to be a threat, because a nod passes throughout the room. Uther’s hand goes slack, and he nods back, the portrait of cordiality. Then he turns to go, pulling Hector with him.</p><p>Hector, in all of his gap-toothed, bandage-nosed, newly short-haired glory, grins.</p><p>There are different expectations for him as a young noble<em>man</em>, but Hector is somewhat more prone to listening when he’s addressed as that rather than as a young lady. He’s still rash and reckless, a rough-and-tumble boy who’s gained a little more power from being respected. Everyone in the Ostia estate learns, if not healing magic, basic first aid when he takes to teaching himself how to wield an axe, to Uther’s aggravation when he finds out. Overall, Hector’s childhood from there on out is happy, if somewhat solitary by habit.</p><p>At seven, he finds a kindred spirit in Eliwood. When they first meet, they shake hands like warriors, leaving scars—Hector’s jagged and wide, Eliwood’s cleaner—across their palms to mark their bond. They’re fast friends, though Eliwood still has to abide by comments of <em>young lady</em>. He has his moments, like suggesting they start regularly dueling when they’re twelve and showing fierce determination when he needs to, but he plays the part better than Hector ever had, pacifistic and calm by nature.</p><p>Some days, he doesn’t seem to mind it much. Most, though, he grimaces from the mere sound of his name.</p><p>“It’s not that I particularly dislike being a girl,” he says one evening. The two are lying in opposite directions across the grass, Hector’s arms folded under his head and Eliwood’s laced over his stomach. Hector thinks he’s doing that to protect himself against accusations of not acting like a lady. “It just feels wrong. I wish I didn’t have to be.”</p><p>Hector, beginning to hit what will be an eight-year-long growth spurt, surges up so fast he almost falls over again. He plants his scraped-up hands on either side of Eliwood’s face. Their faces are upside-down from each other, but that doesn’t stop Hector from saying, with feeling, “You don’t have to be a girl.”</p><p>Eliwood blinks owlishly up at him. “I don’t?”</p><p>“You don’t,” Hector tells him again, with all of the wiseness his eleven years of life can provide him with.</p><p>It takes a few more years and plenty more conversations for that one to sink in. Eliwood confides in Hector on occasion, asking him first about his personal feelings on gender before beginning to ask if Hector will refer to him with different names and pronouns.</p><p>“Just to see,” says Eliwood, and Hector nods every time.</p><p>And when they’re fourteen, the workings of puberty already beginning to put them both through the wringer, Eliwood shows up to their bimonthly duel with his brilliant red hair trimmed short and a wider smile on his face than Hector has ever seen on him. Despite his more masculine presentation, Hector recognizes him at once.</p><p>“What the hell happened to you?” Hector asks him, broad grin contrasting the coarse words. His language is one thing advisors haven’t yet been able to train him out of, nor does he think they ever will.</p><p>“I told my father.”</p><p>Eliwood’s glowing smile and appearance leave little to the imagination, but still Hector asks, “How’d it go?”</p><p>“He and my mother both took it well. His only request was that my chosen name start with <em>El</em>.” That makes them both laugh, and Eliwood adds, “But I’d already decided to go by Eliwood, so that was unnecessary.”</p><p>Hector nods. He can’t imagine Marquess Pherae would be any less firm in his support of Eliwood than Uther’s of Hector, though Lord Elbert might have phrased things more delicately. He can’t help but beam on Eliwood’s behalf. The day Uther had accepted Hector without a moment’s hesitation is one that replays itself in his mind often—he hadn’t doubted Eliwood’s parents would welcome him with open arms as well, but he’s still glad to see Eliwood face such acceptance.</p><p>Eliwood holds out his palm. Hector hurries to shake it, scars aligning. They stand there for a long moment, the sun glowing at their backs but not anywhere near as bright as their smiles.</p><p>Then Hector drops his hand, tries to wipe off the warmth clinging to it and his neck without drawing Eliwood’s concern, and asks, “Well, are we going to hug it out, or did you actually want to duel sometime today?”</p><p>It wouldn’t have been <em>so</em> bad if they’d hugged, Hector will later think, but Eliwood laughs and fetches his lance. Eliwood, carrying himself with more confidence than he has in the seven years Hector has known him, wins that match, if only because Hector is too distracted to put up his usual resistance. (Though he never plans on saying so.)</p><p>Eliwood hauls him back up to his feet with a grin. “Are you slipping?”</p><p>“Dream on,” Hector tells him, though he’s laughing, too.</p><p>Hector wins their match two months later to prove a point, bringing them back up to a draw. If he smiles a little too wide during their matches, then, he surmises, it’s all because of his long-standing love for fighting—and the fact that it allows him to spend that much more time with Eliwood is just a coincidence.</p><p>*</p><p>With all that’s happened in his life the past year, Hector thinks that he’s about as comfortable with his life as he can be—or at least he would be, were it not for the gods-forsaken pegasus that keeps trying to fuck with him.</p><p>It’s driving him <em>mad</em>. He’s made peace with Florina, or at least the closest thing to it he thinks he’ll get out of her—she still can’t quite look him in the eyes, but she’ll speak to him if he’s around—but her pegasus, that damned beast, still makes concentrated efforts to spit in Hector’s eye. Literally.</p><p>Hector doesn’t understand why he’s on the receiving end of this special treatment. The creature doesn’t seem to like Eliwood much either, nor the other men in their party, but he’s never tried to bite anyone else. Yet Hector seems to be the flash of red that makes this metaphorical (?) bull charge.</p><p>Hector hadn’t run into many pegasi before meeting Florina and her sisters, with Ostia’s distance from Ilia, but he’s never met one quite so hell-bent on its hatred toward him. Fiora and Farina’s pegasi don’t have the same reaction to him; it’s only Florina’s that loathes him so.</p><p>The only conclusion Hector can come to is that pegasi’s feelings somehow reflect their owners’, and that simply can’t be true. Sure, Florina is uncomfortable around him, but Lyn has mentioned her discomfort around men in general (something that probably shouldn’t make Hector feel some weird sense of gender euphoria), and he’s witnessed her overall shyness firsthand. She’s one of the sweetest people Hector has ever met. There’s no way she’s cloaking some dark nature with a visceral hatred for Hector. She’s chided her pegasus about snapping at him, even, which makes its continued attempts more than odd, given how it <em>always</em> listens to Florina.</p><p>Hector can’t figure it out. It doesn’t keep him awake at night or anything so asinine—far more horrific thoughts fill his mind—but it <em>is</em> irritating.</p><p>He tries to ignore it as best he can, but one afternoon, during a break from walking—mostly for Eliwood’s benefit, since his already poor constitution has seemed much weaker since, well, his father’s passing—Hector hands out horse treats he’d gotten from a merchant a few days back. Out of the corners of his eyes, he notices the beast watching him. He meets the pegasus’s eyes, only to regret it when they glimmer with something like malice.</p><p>Or, perhaps, interest. Hector can’t read pegasus emotions. Out of the three pegasus knight sisters among their ranks, Florina seems best at this, but she’s on the ground a bit away, occupied with sorting through her equipment.</p><p>It seems cruel to interrupt her just for this, so Hector tries his luck: “What? You want a treat too? I’m not sure how well you’ll like this, but I have plenty to spare.” The pegasus snorts. “Was that a yes or a no? Ah, blast.” Hector shuffles over and holds out a treat from a full foot away. “Here, if—ow! <em>Fuck</em>!”</p><p>Sharp teeth have dug into his outstretched fingers, bypassing the peace offering and instead trying to bite his last phalanx off. The treat hits the ground with a <em>thump</em>. Hector shifts back and lets a seething breath through his teeth. He shakes out his wounded finger. It’s not bleeding, at least, but he has no doubt it’ll leave a scar—an embarrassing one, sure. He opens his mouth to give the fucker responsible the what for—</p><p>But then he looks back over to Florina. She’d startled at Hector’s yelp, and now her wide eyes are fixed on his hand, something like horror filling her expression as she puts the pieces together.</p><p>“<em>Huey,”</em> she scolds, leaping to her feet and rushing over to the pegasus. “What did you do?”</p><p>Talking to her would be more productive than yelling at a horse, Hector decides. He tries to keep his voice as nonconfrontational as possible. “Hey, what’s your buddy’s deal, huh?”</p><p>Florina shifts on her feet. “I—I don’t know, exactly,” she says, still looking at the pegasus with what seems to be the sternest look she can muster. “But it could be—well, he’s protective of me, and we didn’t meet in the best of ways. And pegasi already, um—they tend not to be fond of men.”</p><p>When that sinks in, it’s more relieving than it ought to be. “Huh,” says Hector. The first part he understands well enough, but the second he hadn’t known already, and he adds, “So this guy—” he doesn’t jerk his thumb toward the pegasus because he’s worried he’ll get it bitten off if he does “—doesn’t like me because I’m a guy?”</p><p>Florina gives one of her slow blinks. “I—I think that’s part of it, yes.”</p><p>“Huh,” Hector says again. He laughs, unable to help it, ignoring how the sound makes the pegasus neigh in displeasure again. “Well, he’d be more supportive of my gender than some knights have been. Gotta say, I wonder about passing sometimes, but if a <em>pegasus</em> can realize I’m a man, then I think I’m fine.”</p><p>He laughs again—and falters when he notices the intensity of Florina’s stare, her eyes even wider now. In fact, this might be the longest she’s looked in his direction. She doesn’t glance away when he raises an eyebrow. She doesn’t seem to so much as notice him looking back, not jumping when he waves a hand.</p><p>“…all right, what gives?” Only one thing that could have made her stare like that comes to mind. While he hadn’t expected Florina to have certain opinions in that regard, Hector bristles nonetheless. “Blast, I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that.” Then he shakes his head—is he really second-guessing himself over something like this? “Ah, to hell with it. If you’ve got a problem—”</p><p>Florina jolts upright and waves her hands. “No! N-No, there’s no problem at all! I—I was just—” She looks away, and then back to Hector, and then away again, leaving him bewildered and a little concerned for her health, dropping the aggressive front in a blink. When she speaks again, it’s too quiet for him to hear.</p><p>Hector starts to step closer before reconsidering with a glance at Florina’s tight posture and her pegasus’s sharp teeth. “What was that?” he asks from a safer distance, tone as soft as he can make it.</p><p>Face going red, Florina takes a deep, steadying breath. “I was just surprised,” she says, still quiet but at least audible, “because I didn’t know you were like me.”</p><p>“Like—?” It only takes a second for it to click. Hector’s eyes widen, and he looks over Florina, whose hair finds a lock of hair to twist around. “Damn, really? How about that! So you’re—”</p><p>“I’m a woman.” Florina’s words, seeming to come on pure instinct, are more confident this time. She rests her hand against her pegasus’s snout to steady herself. “I didn’t… always know that, but the pegasi I grew up around did. Including Huey.”</p><p>Hector blinks. “They don’t like men,” he repeats. “And you never were one.”</p><p>Florina gives him a big smile, which seems to surprise them both, from the way she shrinks back, but she nods. A part of Hector wants to ask her more, to compare experiences or something of the like, but he doesn’t want to push her <em>too</em> far out of her comfort zone if she isn’t willing to, and she’s started glancing around as if looking for an excuse to leave.</p><p>He decides to wrap things up, disappointing as it is. “I can’t very well keep my distance in such close quarters,” he says, “so if you could <em>try</em> to get it through your horse’s thick skull that he doesn’t need to bite my damn fingers off, I’d appreciate it.”</p><p>“I’ll try.” Florina smooths a hand down her pegasus’s mane with another attempt at a stern look. It’s cute, if laughable. Hector coughs into his fist just as Florina adds, “Will you be nice to Huey too?”</p><p>Hector makes direct eye contact with the pegasus. They stare at each other for a long, tense few seconds before the pegasus tilts its head away, snorting in a way that sounds a lot like a scoff. “I’ll do my best,” Hector says, actually thinking he’s being honest.</p><p>“Thank you. He’ll appreciate it. Oh—and, um, thank you, Lord Hector,” says Florina, peering back up, “for speaking to me like this as well. I’ve—never really shared this with anyone except for Lady Lyndis and my sisters.”</p><p>“Oh—sure, anytime.” Hector grins. “And hey, if you ever wanna talk about it more, I’m around. So is Eliwood, if you feel more comfortable around him.”</p><p>Florina bows her head and starts to step away, tugging Huey with her. Hector, however, feels compelled to add something else.</p><p>“Hey, listen,” he calls to her back. Apprehension in her features once more, Florina looks over her shoulder. Hector rubs the side of his neck for a moment, working out how to phrase things, then adds, “This group, we look after our own. You need help, you come talk to me, all right? Or Eliwood, like I said. But if anyone is ever an ass to you, specifically—” he taps the axe at his side “—I’m more than willing to teach them a lesson.” He grins crookedly, not thinking about how she may be older than him, but he’s still taking a tone far too similar to his brother’s for his liking.</p><p>Florina’s mouth parts in surprise. Then she nods, smiling fleetingly before darting off into the distance. She isn’t running or crying, so Hector thinks they’re making progress, even if she clings to Huey’s side all the while.</p><p>Maybe, Hector decides, that pegasus isn’t so bad after all.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thanks for reading! if you have time to spare, comments and kudos are always appreciated &lt;3</p><p><a href="https://twitter.com/withlittlequill">twitter</a> | <a href="https://infernallegaycy.tumblr.com">tumblr</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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